The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has got many experts predicting a future in which currently tractable diseases, like tuberculosis, became untreatable again. The popularity of modern antibiotics, ironically, is what is leading to their downfall: antibiotics in consumer products, like soaps, as well as the excessive use of antibiotics by people who have no bacterial infections, help select for strains of bacteria that don’t respond to drugs. Factory-farmed livestock, which receive tremendous doses of antibiotics in their feed, are also a likely breeding ground for resistant bacteria that could potentially infect humans.

This means that we could drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, dramatically increase food availability, and slow the mutation of superbugs by ending meat production and switching to plant based diets. Failing that, why is factory farming allowed? We, as a society, are directly subsidizing a dangerous direction. We need to change course.

Joe Marfice

“… antibiotics in consumer products, like soaps, … help select for strains of bacteria that don’t respond to drugs.”

My understanding was that antibiotic soap was not indicated by the data as having much of an effect on MRSA. Is there research (and not just “common sense”) to the contrary?

@2. Small sample, loose study design (lots of leeway in the potential rates of noncompliance), authors themselves stated their sample was insufficiently diverse, and most importantly, their other finding was that there was no difference between the antibac soaps and regular soap.

I agree that the author should maybe provide some references for the claims, but the study you cited was a very preliminary look at the topic and basically concluded there’s no reason to use antibac soap. Plus it doesn’t have anything to do with the main point of this article, which is about antibiotic use in animal feed.

Tim

@Shiva Steve Ordog: There’s no reason to jump to even more bad science and suggest switching to a plant based diet, something we are have not evolved to healthily live on. No, veganism won’t kill you, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy either.

There are plenty of ways to humanely and naturally raise animals for food.